C0deHunter wrote on 2025-12-31, 17:30:

In F.E.A.R. Gold, I only have 'Enable EAX 2.0' option, how come EAX 3.0 (or even EAX 4.0 for that matter!) is not listed?

A couple of things to note here. First, Creative's branding of EAX 3.0 and EAX 4.0 was sometimes confusing. They often used "EAX Advanced HD" as an umbrella term when referring to either of those versions, and some games adopted that approach. The only way to know for sure if a game uses EAX 4.0 is when that's clearly stated in its options, manual, readme, or website. With regards to F.E.A.R. specifically, we have this page on Creative's old site which confirms that the game does indeed use EAX 4.0.

At a guess, EAX 2.0 was left as a separate setting in the options menu of F.E.A.R. because most on-board audio hardware of the time could only handle that. To enable EAX 4.0, an Audigy or X-Fi card was needed, which allowed their owners to also tick the "EAX Advanced HD" checkbox. Again, this varies from game to game. There was no clear standardization to how EAX versions were handled in the options menu of different games.

In short, don't expect games to clearly show the EAX version that they use in their options menu. Some do, but it's usually the exception, and not the norm. In most cases, you will have to find that info by looking at the game's readme file, manual or website.

Thanks for amazing explanation! OK, in F.E.A.R., I can clearly see that there is a Enable EAX 2.0 (and immediately below it) Enable EAX Advanced HD toggle , so I guess it means the EAX beyond 2.0

For anyone with an Audigy RX, the most up to date version of alchemy is from the Danielk audigy support pack. This installs and runs really well. Run it through the main installer.

I've also discovered that A3D support works if Alchemy is active in the game folder on Windows 11.

Having trouble with st:voyage elite force gog version. A3D has some background sounds playing back with distortion, but this is off-topic. I guess Creative's emulation is layered on top of ds3d.

sharangad wrote on 2026-01-06, 10:16:

Having trouble with st:voyage elite force gog version. A3D has some background sounds playing back with distortion, but this is off-topic. I guess Creative's emulation is layered on top of ds3d.

I think Elite Force uses A3D 2.0 (or possibly even 3.0) so I'm not sure how Creative's emulation would handle that. On that note, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight sounded completely flat when using A3D on my Audigy 2 ZS under Win98. With a real Vortex 2 card, positional audio worked fine, but there was some crackling on occasion.

This is why I don't bother with A3D all that much. Even with a real Vortex 2, which I do have, you often need to juggle different driver versions and DLL files in order to get the expected result.

@Joseph, have you had any luck getting a X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty front panel (SB1110) button lights working in Windows 10. As soon as the XP driver (XFTI_PCDRV_LB_2_17_0008.exe) is installed (from your X-FI XP instructions) the buttons turn on but when installing XFI_SupportPack_8_0_Refresh3.exe on Windows 10, the lights remain off.

zuldan wrote on 2026-01-06, 11:45:

@Joseph, have you had any luck getting a X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty front panel (SB1110) button lights working in Windows 10. As soon as the XP driver (XFTI_PCDRV_LB_2_17_0008.exe) is installed (from your X-FI XP instructions) the buttons turn on but when installing XFI_SupportPack_8_0_Refresh3.exe on Windows 10, the lights remain off.

Sadly, I don't have the front panel. My card didn't come with that, since it's a Fatal1ty Professional, and not the Champion model.

I never tried those old 2.17.0008 drivers with Win10, as they exhibited some odd glitches under Win7. They work flawlessly under WinXP though. Might be a good fit for Vista too, but I haven't tested that.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-01-06, 11:32:

sharangad wrote on 2026-01-06, 10:16:

Having trouble with st:voyage elite force gog version. A3D has some background sounds playing back with distortion, but this is off-topic. I guess Creative's emulation is layered on top of ds3d.

I think Elite Force uses A3D 2.0 (or possibly even 3.0) so I'm not sure how Creative's emulation would handle that. On that note, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight sounded completely flat when using A3D on my Audigy 2 ZS under Win98. With a real Vortex 2 card, positional audio worked fine, but there was some crackling on occasion.

This is why I don't bother with A3D all that much. Even with a real Vortex 2, which I do have, you often need to juggle different driver versions and DLL files in order to get the expected result.

Well, I got A3D going with a disc based install of the game and there's no distortion. I'll update this post with a vid.

[EDIT] Sounds a bit strange and you're right, it's an A3D 3.0 game.
https://youtu.be/5uB5JvDkTkM

How do YouTube recordings capture audible differences between with EAX and without EAX?

MattRocks wrote on 2026-01-11, 15:29:

How do YouTube recordings capture audible differences between with EAX and without EAX?

No one knows what qualifications and understanding the authors of the video have.
Creative has a special virtual source after the DSP - ‘What-U-Hear‘.
This is a digital stream after all sound effects have been applied.
I wouldn't be surprised if they record sound for videos using the AC97 codec, connecting an X-Fi to it.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-01-11, 15:29:

How do YouTube recordings capture audible differences between with EAX and without EAX?

This is with headphone cmss virtual surround, captured with, as Shevalier said, with the what-u-hear recording source on the Audigy.

In headphone cmss mode, the hrtf audio is a stereo signal which the what-u-hear source can capture. Audio/Video clip compression might butcher the sound.

The xfi actually had a multichannel what u hear source which a creative recorder app could use to record 5.1 channel wave files. Unfortunately I only have an Audigy RX. The xfi may have problems with the what u hear source on windows 11, at least according to danielk's release notes for his last driver pack. There's conflicting info on this.
[edit]
To hear some sort of hrtf from these clips, listening with headphones with all signal processing switched off might help. I do know it sounds great while playing these games, to watch my own clips I have to turn off cmss.

sharangad wrote on 2026-01-11, 16:37:

[edit]
To hear some sort of hrtf from these clips, listening with headphones with all signal processing switched off might help. I do know it sounds great while playing these games, to watch my own clips I have to turn off cmss.

This will be more complete.
In order to listen to such clips with headphones, you must
- disable any virtual multi-channel sound system for headphones.
Dolby, from C-Media, from any manufacturer of USB headsets.
Only pure raw output.
- adjust your headphones with an equaliser to the Harman curve, for example, based on https://squig.link/
CMSS assumes that the headphones are ‘ideal’.

Fair enough, but unless there is a without EAX baseline - how would any listener know what EAX is changing?

For extra complication: In addition to the YouTube video needing to present a "bit perfect" clone of the original outputs, to really know differences the listener would need a neutral pipeline that doesn't resample the Youtube video. In other words, not an EAX card.

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 11:36:

Fair enough, but unless there is a without EAX baseline - how would any listener know what EAX is changing?

For extra complication: In addition to the YouTube video needing to present a "bit perfect" clone of the original outputs, to really know differences the listener would need a neutral pipeline that doesn't resample the Youtube video. In other words, not an EAX card.

The samples in EAX era games are of very mediocre quality, often 22kHz.
Creative even presented Crystaliser as a solution to this problem (in their opinion).
In my experience, YouTube and other audio recompressions do not pose a big problem.
The main problem is the frequency response of the headphones.
The entire HRTF model is based on manipulating this very frequency response.
Therefore, if the frequency response does not correspond to a neutral one (according to the Harmon curve), the sounds are positioned anywhere but where they should be.

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 12:16:

The samples in EAX era games are of very mediocre quality, often 22kHz. Creative even presented Crystaliser as a solution to thi […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 11:36:

Fair enough, but unless there is a without EAX baseline - how would any listener know what EAX is changing?

For extra complication: In addition to the YouTube video needing to present a "bit perfect" clone of the original outputs, to really know differences the listener would need a neutral pipeline that doesn't resample the Youtube video. In other words, not an EAX card.

The samples in EAX era games are of very mediocre quality, often 22kHz.
Creative even presented Crystaliser as a solution to this problem (in their opinion).
In my experience, YouTube and other audio recompressions do not pose a big problem.
The main problem is the frequency response of the headphones.
The entire HRTF model is based on manipulating this very frequency response.
Therefore, if the frequency response does not correspond to a neutral one (according to the Harmon curve), the sounds are positioned anywhere but where they should be.

I suspect there is another nuance because Creative Labs were big on pushing the Cambridge Sound Works gamer surround sound kits, which in turn emphasised bass/terrible (de-emphasising vocal mid-tones).

That bias towards high and low tones seemed to correspond with booming explosions and metal clinking gaming audio (not human spoken dialogue in DVD audio playback).

Now I wonder, if someone were comparing headphones specifically for EAX-friendliness, should they also focus on Harmon curve "compliance" specifically in the low and high tones (ignoring the mid-tones)?

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 19:29:

I suspect there is another nuance because Creative Labs were big on pushing the Cambridge Sound Works gamer surround sound kits, […]
Show full quote

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 12:16:

The samples in EAX era games are of very mediocre quality, often 22kHz. Creative even presented Crystaliser as a solution to thi […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 11:36:

Fair enough, but unless there is a without EAX baseline - how would any listener know what EAX is changing?

For extra complication: In addition to the YouTube video needing to present a "bit perfect" clone of the original outputs, to really know differences the listener would need a neutral pipeline that doesn't resample the Youtube video. In other words, not an EAX card.

The samples in EAX era games are of very mediocre quality, often 22kHz.
Creative even presented Crystaliser as a solution to this problem (in their opinion).
In my experience, YouTube and other audio recompressions do not pose a big problem.
The main problem is the frequency response of the headphones.
The entire HRTF model is based on manipulating this very frequency response.
Therefore, if the frequency response does not correspond to a neutral one (according to the Harmon curve), the sounds are positioned anywhere but where they should be.

I suspect there is another nuance because Creative Labs were big on pushing the Cambridge Sound Works gamer surround sound kits, which in turn emphasised bass/terrible (de-emphasising vocal mid-tones).

That bias towards high and low tones seemed to correspond with booming explosions and metal clinking gaming audio (not human spoken dialogue in DVD audio playback).

Now I wonder, if someone were comparing headphones specifically for EAX-friendliness, should they also focus on Harmon curve "compliance" specifically in the low and high tones (ignoring the mid-tones)?

When a sound wave with a ‘flat response’ interacts with the shoulders, neck, head, and ears (as physical objects), a Harman curve is created.
Headphones with a truly flat response begin to strongly emphasise the mid and especially high frequencies, as the interaction with the barriers in the form of the body is eliminated.
For example, the same complaints about high-frequency distortion when CMSS is enabled are related to incorrect headphones.

sharangad wrote on 2025-12-30, 13:45:

Here a brief playthrough of Doom 3 which I posted earlier: https://youtu.be/kzOWqKrP8y8 There doesn't appear to be any twitch there. The only place I've seen this twitch is on youtube.

Curious, I feel like your shotgun does not sound the same as mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF7-n-xcJ90&t=1195s Could there be some sound effect mismatches between different generations ?
I am on WinXP32 but using an X-Fi era card while Doom was built during the Audigy era so your version is probably more accurate, however I believe you can get more simultaneous effects working on an X-Fi card
It at least proves how appropriate OpenAL is on newer versions of Windows so so as you pair the right game with the right generation of sound cards

SansPlomb95 wrote on Today, 08:10:

Curious, I feel like your shotgun does not sound the same as mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF7-n-xcJ90&t=1195s Could ther […]
Show full quote

sharangad wrote on 2025-12-30, 13:45:

Here a brief playthrough of Doom 3 which I posted earlier: https://youtu.be/kzOWqKrP8y8 There doesn't appear to be any twitch there. The only place I've seen this twitch is on youtube.

Curious, I feel like your shotgun does not sound the same as mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF7-n-xcJ90&t=1195s Could there be some sound effect mismatches between different generations ?
I am on WinXP32 but using an X-Fi era card while Doom was built during the Audigy era so your version is probably more accurate, however I believe you can get more simultaneous effects working on an X-Fi card
It at least proves how appropriate OpenAL is on newer version of Windows so song as you pair the right game with the right generation of sound cards

Your EAX effect is much more "wet", that is the reverb effects are mixed much stronger on top of the original game audio. It's so strong that I don't think it sounds right? Sharangad's EAX balance sounds right to me

I agree, Sharangad's version sounds more balanced with the right amount of reverb and sometimes richer as well, for instance my shotgun sometimes sounds hollow as an other effect was missing during the shot

Doom 3 can use up to 128 hardware voices on X-Fi cards, while being limited to 64 on Audigy cards. That might account for some of the differences, but there could be other factors as well.

X-RAM will also be utilized on X-Fi cards, but I don't think that would matter much in this case.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 09:22:

Doom 3 can use up to 128 hardware voices on X-Fi cards, while being limited to 64 on Audigy cards. That might account for some o […]
Show full quote

Doom 3 can use up to 128 hardware voices on X-Fi cards, while being limited to 64 on Audigy cards. That might account for some of the differences, but there could be other factors as well.

X-RAM will also be utilized on X-Fi cards, but I don't think that would matter much in this case.

Doom3 is like Quake3. Both have their own software sound engine for effects. The sound engine does not rely on any hardware for audio effects.

Doom3 will query OpenAL because Doom3 is using OpenAL for mixing the sounds that it has already rendered. When Doom3 queries OpenAL, the Doom3 log is blindly repeating whatever OpenAL driver printed. The driver said it has 127 voices - that's true, but Doom3 doesn't use them.

The Id software games studio was independent and big and targeted platforms such as MacOS where Creative Labs, EAX, and Microsoft don't exist. To experience what Doom3 developers actually intended, you would mix the audio in a neutral hardware sound processor like ENVY24 (and take actions to avoid triggering Microsoft's software KMixer).

To exercise actual EAX features as a studio of developers intended, try games like Thief: Deadly Shadows that outsourced their audio to the hardware EAX sound engine.